


Dinner

by kayls



Series: Growing Up/No One Understands [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: (actually bubblr but whatever), Anorexia, Eating Disorders, F/F, Fainting, Hospitalization, Humanstuck, Triggers, Tumblr, behaviors, damara and mom are severe background characters, okay please don't read this if it'll trigger you, really this is triggering as hell, thinspo viewing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 13:16:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1606520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayls/pseuds/kayls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>**major trigger warning for eating disorders, please stay safe**</p>
<p>Your name is Rose Lalonde and you’ll never be perfect without her help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dinner

**Author's Note:**

> just again, warning that this is a major trigger-loaded piece but I needed to write it.

It’s a Saturday morning when you make the blog. You search the tags and the pesky site has the nerve to ask you if you’re okay. “Of course I’m not…” you mumble, clicking through the warning and going into the posts, following anyone who is posting pictures of skinny girls or reblogging diet tips.

You know it’s mad, and that Kanaya will cry if she catches you, but you just want to unzip your veins and let all of the lard drip out. You love the girl but hate what she’s done to your body. She’s made you fat and you don’t know if you can ever forgive her for that. You take another sip of green tea and wretch at the taste but that and water are the only things you’re permitted to put past your lips today without retribution, the little voice in your head told you so.

When you first started getting closer to Kanaya, back in junior year of high school, you stayed up all night with her talking about body image, before she knew about what you felt, and told you that sometimes ‘a little monster takes up residence in my head, and it sounds like his main address is in yours’ and no no no you never want this girl to feel how you feel never want her to hate that beautiful slim body with curves in all the right places, curves the draw the eye from breasts to torso to ass to legs to feet. You never want her to feel the way about her wonderful body that you do your horribly malformed one. “How does she stay so skinny? She eats everything she makes me eat…” You whisper it as you stare off into the screen, and shake your head. No matter. You’ll get small again.

Kanaya calls at about noon-ish, telling you that she wants to go out for lunch and she’ll be back at the house to pick you up at about two. You swallow your fear and tell her that it sounds great, hearing the click on her end and she’s hung up and now you’re sobbing because no you won’t eat no you can’t eat you were already scared of how to get around dinner with the girl but now lunch?

You’re panicking and over the course of the afternoon you’ve picked up some followers on Bubblr, and you make a post begging anybody to please help you figure out a plan. Minutes tick by like hours and you’re in your dashboard looking at all the girls more beautiful than you could ever be and then there’s a notification, one new message, and your heart leaps with joy because somebody might be able to get you out of it.

It’s someone with the URL the-handmaid-of-skinny and they are so kind and caring, they tell you their name and say ‘I can help y0u av0id the fear 0w0 always a pleasure t0 help 0ut s0me0ne like me’ and even with the off-kilter typing, the whole thing puts an end to the sickness in your stomach and quiets the monster in your head.

“Aradia.” You say out loud before you type it. It’s such a pretty name, and you look at the pictures on her blog and she’s such a pretty girl, angular and thin but she’s quick to point out that her stomach is huge and then you see that, while it isn’t huge, it’s a little bloated maybe? You shrug and tell her that she looks a hell of a lot better than you do and she just says ‘it’ll all c0me in time 030’. She gives you some tips, tells you to find apple cider vinegar and order water and diet soda and asks you a couple other questions and you answer them wonderfully. She signs off with ‘good luck and stay skinny!! y0u’ll never be perfect without my help, s0 I’m glad we g0t in c0ntact!’ and you smile, because she knows exactly what you need. Luck and thinness and a shepherdess to guide you through it all.

Kanaya comes around the promised two ‘o’clock and you’re in a fashionably baggy sweater and leggings that used to stick to your thighs but are starting to get a little big. Kanaya gives you a kiss and holds your hand, tells you that she knows how you’ve been feeling lately but that she thinks “it’ll be wonderful for you to face the fear in the company of a person that you are close to” and you smile and try to look sincere but feel a little like crying and running but that’s okay you just fill your mind with the words Aradia told you.

You eat and Kanaya congratulates you, and just before the two of you are about to leave, you excuse yourself to the restroom under the disguise of “traffic will be bad and I won’t be able to hold it” and then there is no easy way to say it even for someone who loves to hide her meanings behind the mystery of words--- you puke your ever loving guts out until you see the bright orange of the humus you ate when you first got to the restaurant. You’re tearing up and crying a little bit because Kanaya would kill you and she just spent her money on you and money isn’t easy to come by nowadays but there’s a sense of calm behind it: “I’m not going to gain weight today.” You whisper it out loud and compose yourself, wiping away tears and splashing cool water on your face and rinsing out your mouth, and when you get back out to your love she doesn’t seem to notice anything is wrong, score one for getting skinny.

On the drive home you’re on the mobile app and telling Aradia how well it went, how it hurt but in the end everything came up easily and she is so proud of you and congratulates you on denying the earthly pleasure of food, the great tempter of calories and tells you that you should reward yourself with a spa day or something. And you do because Kanaya has to go to the observatory for one of her astronomy classes so she whips up a quick dinner and watches you take your plate into your room so that you can ‘study’ and once you hear the apartment go silent you scrape the food into the disposal and paint your nails instead.

Weeks go by and you get closer to Aradia. You add her on Skype and you chat with her not just about avoiding food but about everything. You ask her what she’s studying in school and the resulting silence and then circumnavigating in words make you realize that she’s still in high school, that you’re an elder in a kid’s scene, but something in your head says ‘Good. It means you’re special. Everyone else gave up, but you stuck with it.’ and you smile as you talk to this girl for hours on end swapping secrets and tips and just complaining about the world that you were born too big for and the people who were trying to make you bigger.

During Lent, you decide first that you’re going to give up junk food, any of it that you haven’t given up yet. Chips, fries, snack packs, jellos at first. By the second week you give up meat, which Kanaya doesn’t recognize as you trying to get skinnier, just you trying to be compassionate. The third week, all animal products are out the window for you, and you make Kanaya move her milks and cheeses and thin slices of lamb and roast beef to a mini-fridge left over from when you lived on campus. The fourth week, you try to make it a water fast, and you pass out on the second day.

Kanaya sits with you and once you’re feeling better you tell her that you just ran too much at the gym. She asks if it’s related to the disorder and you shake your head, just “I didn’t know my limits now that I’m eating less proteins and stuff. I’ll be more careful next time…” and she looks worried but she leaves you be after that, and the voice in your head is screaming and Aradia, though kinder, is disappointed nonetheless. 

Aradia goes silent for a while and you keep up your plans, finding a few other ‘friends’ online to keep you accountable and speaking of accountable slowly your ribs start to grace your skin and though they never poke out as much as you would like them to, if you look carefully you can see the outlines of each one and count them all. You’ve always felt so much joy putting numbers on your body; how many ribs can you count? How short have you cut your hair? How long are your collarbones?

You and Kanaya go to your mom’s house for dinner one Sunday night, and you’ve starved yourself all week so you think that you might be able to get away with this meal, but when you get there it’s alcohol and cheese and meat and fat fat fat things you will never eat again so you get a huge salad that tastes horrible but you say you’re stuffed, and even that in the end you can’t keep down.

You’re gaining a following on Bubblr, and have so far managed to evade the reporters who seek to take down blogs like yours. You take pictures lamenting how much further you have to go until you hit your goal, but people rebubble your posts and tag them ‘thinspo’. You smile, but part of you says that if you’re the picture of thin then what are all the people you look up to? You will never be skinny enough, there is always someone smaller.

On Skype there’s a message waiting for you the next time you log in, from Aradia, reading that she got hospitalized and now her sister was forcing her into treatment and she was scared that they were going to make her fat. You frown at the screen and send Aradia one of her ‘thinspiring’ messages she would always send you, telling her to have faith in herself and that righteousness would always persevere.

Weeks more go by and Kanaya keeps pulling your leash tighter and tighter, threatening you with the same fattening fate as Aradia was facing (though Kanaya still had no idea about this friendship, although did ask why you were always online anymore. “Studying.” You’d always say with half a heart) but you knew it was bullshit, the two of you barely had money for healthy food (another reason to starve--- keep down the food costs.) and your insurance was shit and there was no way Kanaya could send you into treatment, it was just an empty suicide threat.

And then another Skype message. From Aradia’s account and it’s a group chat: “Aradia died. Eating dysfunction. Not enough food.” and then translated into a language you can’t read, though it looks so much more elaborate than the choppy English and you’re crying and hold a fast for her.

You haven’t been to class in days and you’re so freezing cold and the world is moving in slow motion dark shades and you don’t remember the last time you ate to be completely honest, Kanaya comes back from her education class and looks at you for a moment, her eyes are watering up “You haven’t moved for three hours” and she says something else but it’s all muffled and then “I’m taking you to the hospital.”

And she does, apparently, because you’re in the car and she’s stroking your hand and there’s a horror in her voice when she feels your arm and the downy fuzz that’s grown there. And then you’re in a waiting room and she’s looking at your bruises that you think look like delicate watercolors delicate like you want to be but you vaguely realize that Kanaya is crying.

And then you’re taken alone and you keep passing in and out of awareness but the next thing you remember you’re in a bed with a feeding tube and Kanaya is just sobbing and blaming herself and you know that you’ve fucked up because you can tell she’s poised to fall back into her own bad habits and it’s all your fault because you couldn’t get skinny enough to truly earn her love.

The next morning there’s a medical team in the room when you wake up, there to explain to you what’s going on, they’re going to start weight restoration here and keep you for observation until they’re sure of the damage your restriction and fasting has caused, and then you’re going to be sent to residential treatment.

“Okay.” You say, it’s all you have to say, and you can’t look Kanaya in the eyes and she can’t look at you at all. She storms out of the room and you hear yelling down the hall but you don’t know what’s going on. A nurse goes down the hall to try and catch Kanaya you think, but you don’t know how to feel.

Maybe if you had died, like Aradia, you wouldn’t have hurt Kanaya. Again.  
Or maybe it would have hurt more.  
You honestly never know anymore.

It’s just trying to erase the thoughts, anymore. The ones that scream at you and tell you that you will never be good enough. You tell this to your therapist and she nods and just says “It’s all part of the disorder.” You shrug and ask about Kanaya, and your therapist divulges the little that she can and you are satisfied, for now. Until Visiting Day, at least.  
Everything you are is just part of the disorder and even in treatment you still have waves of wishing it would wash over you, and leave you tiny again even if it meant leaving you dead.  
You’re three weeks into treatment, dear, and the voice is as loud as ever.  
But you have a whole team rooting for you.  
Including the best girlfriend in the world.  
You’ll never be perfect without her help.


End file.
